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On Rethinking A Touchscreen On A Mac

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

In recent years I’ve been somewhat critical of Microsoft’s Windows 10 touchscreen strategy as an anemic response to Apple’s success with the Mac. My thinking has changed. Not about Microsoft. A touchscreen PC makes a compelling reason to buy vs. the Mac or an iPad, and the commercials comparing the devices carry a good message. Not about Windows 10 on touchscreen devices, which are not as elegant to use as an iPad. A touchscreen is an expectation for electronic devices in the 21st century and Apple needs to bite the bullet, suck it up, swallow some pride, and put a touchscreen on a Mac. Hell, why not make a Mac with a removable touchscreen that leaves the keyboard behind.

Simply put, the Mac needs a touchscreen.

Why? Touchscreens are everywhere. Refrigerators, microwave ovens, washers and dryers, tablets, smartphones, PCs, and a gazillion other devices. Apple didn’t invent the touchscreen, but the iPhone maker showed us how it should be used. For now, Apple’s 20th century executives, designers, and engineers think a touchscreen Mac is just wrong and doesn’t make a good user interface. They are correct. But that is not what is important.

If the Mac had a touchscreen there I times when I would use it. Because it’s there. And multi-touch to zoom in or out of a screen, or to make finger tip annotations on a document, has a place. I see Windows PC users do it often on their touchscreen PCs. Without a keyboard, a Windows 10 touchscreen notebook is a very clumsy tablet. But again, that’s not the issue. There are times when touch is enough, especially when sharing information, doing a presentation, or just relaxing and consuming content– which is what many iPad owners do. An ultra precise, iPad-like user interface is not that important.

If we were to do Multi-Touch on the screen of the notebook, that wouldn’t be enough – then the desktop wouldn’t work that way.

That seems more like a good example of executive denial. Why not do it for a touchscreen iMac, too?

Can you imagine a 27-inch iMac where you have to reach over the air to try to touch and do things? That becomes absurd.

On one level, Schiller is correct. But you’re not going to use a touchscreen iMac the same way you use an iPad or iPhone. Both can also use a Bluetooth keyboard and that functionality creates a better way to type content into the devices. Likewise, a touchscreen Mac notebook or desktop iMac could allow users to draw easier, to annotate easier, and for some, navigate easier, and just as we don’t use a Bluetooth keyboard on iOS devices all the time, a touchscreen Mac wouldn’t be used as a touchscreen all the time.

You can’t optimize for both. It’s the lowest common denominator thinking.

No, it’s just a different denominator. Apple wouldn’t be throwing away keyboard access, or mouse access, or trackpad access just to force users to engage with a touch screen. Instead, the touchscreen would be simply another function; another way to navigate and perform certain intuitive functions. Does Apple’s designers and engineering teams think a touchscreen makes sense on a Mac?

Our instincts were that it didn’t, but, what the heck, we could be wrong-so our teams worked on that for a number of times over the years. We’ve absolutely come away with the belief that it isn’t the right thing to do. Our instincts were correct.

Really?

If Apple expected every Mac user to move from keyboard, mouse, or trackpad to a macOS version optimized for a touchscreen, then yes, their instincts were correct. But that’s not the issue. Touchscreens are everywhere and people use them. In some devices it’s the only interface. In other devices, Windows 10 notebooks and desktops are a good example, there are multiple interfaces, of which touch is merely one.

Touchscreens have become so predominant in the industry that the only segment of the traditional PC industry that is growing is touchscreen notebooks and hybrids. Meanwhile, Mac sales are down again. A Windows 10 touchscreen experience may not be as good as an iPad, but then iPad sales are down again, too.

I’m willing to rethink the touchscreen issue, and customers are buying touchscreen PCs in greater numbers than Apple sells Macs, so maybe it’s time for Apple’s aging executives, engineers, and designers to rethink the issue, too.

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Apple has had a touch-screen Mac for several years already! It’s called the iPad.

Of course, to make the iPad touch-friendly, Apple changed the interface of OS X to suit the multi-touch method of interacting with those computers (Yes, iOS is a variant of OS X, but with a different interface for multi-touch).

But MacBooks and iMacs DON’T need a touch screen because we have a physical keyboard (so an onscreen keyboard is unnecessary), and a multi-touch trackpad (so we don’t need to suffer Gorilla-arms, or smear our display with dirt and fingerprint oils).

Apple has always been a leader in tech, not a follower.

(snips)

The only reason why Microsoft and its licensees are selling touch-screen Windows PCs is because Microsoft failed badly in its attempts to create a multi-touch mobile operating system like iOS.

(more snips)

So Windows “tablets” are desktop and notebook Windows PCs running desktop apps (not designed for multi-touch) on Intel-processor desktop hardware running the same desktop operating system and the same non-multi-touch optimized desktop applications as before.

Not only are desktop and notebook Windows PC hardware not designed for handheld multi-touch, but the software is not designed for multi-touch either.

To prove this, use any Windows desktop or notebook PC with a multi-touch screen, open Adobe Photoshop, and try to do extensive graphics work WITHOUT using the keyboard and trackpad. It is an exercise in frustration.

Apple really came up with a good solution in the TouchPad (despite the criticism from some people who never really used the TouchPad, and tend to criticize Apple on almost everything they do). The TouchPad allows most controls to be removed from the screen, to use the full screen for the work you are doing.

(again, snips)

So all of your multi-touch control in the TouchPad and Trackpad, and the physical keyboard, are on the same plane and all within reach of your fingers without needing to outstretch your arms.

A small proportion of Windows PCs have touch screens. But due to their really minimal usefulness, and the cost that multitouch adds to the computers, most people have not bought into it.

Yeah, I have a few problems with some of this. I don’t want to defend Kate’s position but if a Mac comes with a touchscreen it’s likely Apple will do something special with it.

Apple has had a touch-screen Mac for several years already! It’s called the iPad.

Except it’s not a touchscreen Mac. Macs are far more powerful than iPads, and iPad apps are not as powerful. Look at the Microsoft Surface Studio. It’s like a giant iPad screen but it runs powerful apps like Photoshop and Illustrator, great for drawing. The iPad does not.

But MacBooks and iMacs DON’T need a touch screen because we have a physical keyboard (so an onscreen keyboard is unnecessary), and a multi-touch trackpad (so we don’t need to suffer Gorilla-arms, or smear our display with dirt and fingerprint oils).

That’s one opinion. There are more touchscreen Windows PCs on the market than Macs, and they are the fastest selling PCs these days. As to repetitive stress injuries, dirt, and fingerprint, what do you get with an iPad Pro? Same thing.

Apple has always been a leader in tech, not a follower.

Gimme a break. Apple waits until something happens in the market, then follows up with a better package. But nothing Apple does of its own is that great. Smartwatches came before Watch. Smartphones came before iPhone. Media players came before iPod. Tablets came before iPad. Apple just did them better.

The only reason why Microsoft and its licensees are selling touch-screen Windows PCs is because Microsoft failed badly in its attempts to create a multi-touch mobile operating system like iOS.

Not only are desktop and notebook Windows PC hardware not designed for handheld multi-touch, but the software is not designed for multi-touch either.

You’re just wrong here. Windows 10 has options in the UI for touchscreen use and multi-touch. It works well. Maybe not as cool as an iPad Pro, but it does work for those who want to use it. If you want to use multi-touch to draw on a Mac, what do you do?

Apple really came up with a good solution in the TouchPad (despite the criticism from some people who never really used the TouchPad, and tend to criticize Apple on almost everything they do). The TouchPad allows most controls to be removed from the screen, to use the full screen for the work you are doing.

What’s a TouchPad? Apple does not make a TouchPad. They make a trackpad for Macs, a standalone Magic Trackpad (same thing), and an iPad. There is no TouchPad and you cannot draw on a trackpad as well as Windows 10 users can draw on a touchscreen PC.

A small proportion of Windows PCs have touch screens. But due to their really minimal usefulness, and the cost that multitouch adds to the computers, most people have not bought into it.

Those touchscreen Windows 10 PCs are the fastest growing segment of PC notebooks and their sales alone outnumber Macs. As to cost, please note that most touchscreen PCs are priced far, far less than anything comparable by Apple. Even the comparably equipped Microsoft Surface Book has a touchscreen while a MacBook Pro has a Touch Bar. Personally, I like the Touch Bar idea but it could be completely negated with a touchscreen.

No one forces Windows 10 PC owners to use a touchscreen. But it can be handy and has a place, and yes, Windows 10 has touchscreen tools, and those PCs with detachable keyboards don’t turn into iPads, but again, they have a place and they get used appropriately. It’s table stakes. The Mac needs a touchscreen and likely is losing sales because Apple is too stubborn to recognize that 1) many people like it and use it, and 2) Microsoft made it work in Windows.

I do agree with Apple’s reasoning that desktop computers are not really good for touch. Why not some kind of air gestures ala Kinect to interact with the screen? Make use of that camera other then facetime and photobooth?

Touchscreen capabilities feel like the norm because the majority of PC’s shipping have it wether customers want it or not. I really wonder how many people actually use it. The question you need to ask is – does having a touchscreen on say, a Macbook, mean you’re going to become more efficient? We couldn’t help but marvel at a client in a meeting recently operating her touchscreen Toshiba laptop while outlining a brief to us. Not only did it look ergonomically awkward, in the end, she went back to the trackpad. Apple already a more ergonomically friendly solution in their Multi-touch trackpad, which is why they pursued that avenue instead (they’ve been vocal about this in the past). You can argue Apple should just add touchscreen capabilities, but we’ve survived this long without it in a ‘touch’ world, and the lack of it by no means makes the Mac an inferior platform. If Apple ever rethink their position, it’ll require time and resources into making OSX touch friendly for an ‘I want’ feature, not necessarily an ‘I need’. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll see an ARM powered Macbook running iOS that you can touch all you want. In the meantime, there are more important things Apple should be focusing on to avoid any more customer discontent from last year.

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